Androgyny
by sekific
Summary: It takes more than long hair and a pretty face to be a girl, but that's just fine with Sanada.


In the first year of high school, after the tennis season was over, Yukimura let his hair grow long, down until it brushed his shoulders.

Sanada wasn't precisely surprised. Yukimura had never been concerned about looking feminine or not, and his hair had never been particularly short anyway. Their school had loose enough rules about such things, so Sanada supposed it didn't matter. It was distracting, though; it fell in Yukimura's face a lot, and he developed a habit of tucking it behind his ears that Sanada found strangely appealing.

Yukimura didn't cut his hair when the next year's tennis season began, somewhat to Sanada's surprise. It grew a little longer, and curled more noticeably at the ends, and still Yukimura didn't cut it. He began pulling it back into loose ponytails instead, until Renji insisted on braiding it for matches to ensure it stayed out of his eyes.

The first time Sanada had walked into the changing rooms and seen Renji calmly and expertly pulling Yukimura's hair up into a french braid, he'd burst into loud enough laughter to startle Niou into peering out of the showers to see what was going on. And then he'd offered to buy Yukimura some pretty ribbons, and Yukimura'd stuck his tongue out, and Renji'd offered to try and crimp Sanada's hair sometime so he could be pretty too, and he'd felt so fond of them both that he'd had to go back outside until he stopped blushing.

Yukimura's face looked odd with his hair pulled out of his face so severely; sharper and crueller. Almost arrogant, a trait that Yukimura certainly had but which Sanada found a little unsettling when it was so visible on his features. Sanada found himself wanting Yukimura to win faster, just for the moment back in the locker rooms when he'd take his hair down and shake it out and look like himself again.

Yukimura's voice dropped, around that time, complete with a few weeks of embarrassing squeaking as his voice settled. Sanada found himself regarding Yukimura in bemusement not long after, one day when Yukimura was reading out an essay in front of the school; he knew that Yukimura's delicate appearance wasn't reflective of much except his mother's genetic legacy, but hearing that low — and distinctly masculine — baritone emerge confidently from those feminine features was extremely disconcerting.

And, he admitted ruefully to himself, problematic.

Sanada wasn't that interested in girls, generally. Nor in boys, either, he'd concluded. But this Yukimura — with his long hair, his grace, his new voice, his strength — embodied both, somehow, in a way that made Sanada yearn in ways he wasn't accustomed to.

Yukimura, for his part, seemed oblivious to Sanada's new awareness and accompanying awkwardness. Renji, perhaps, was less oblivious; Sanada got the distinct impression that Renji had decided to pretend he'd noticed nothing until such time as Sanada told him. Which meant Sanada was, mostly, free to blush at his own reactions to Yukimura; the way his skin would heat when Yukimura touched him incidentally, or the way his eyes would track the movement when Yukimura pushed his hair back over his shoulders, the way a smile from Yukimura would make his heart feel warm and swollen.

And then Yukimura went on a date with the captain of the girl's club. Sanada, embarrassed and ashamed of himself for doing so, let himself be hauled along by Niou and Marui to try and catch a glimpse of the date. It wasn't, in fact, very interesting — the two of them talked animatedly as they walked to the train station, but not in a very flirtatious way — but when they arrived Yukimura leaned in and brushed his lips against the girl's cheek and Sanada felt the bottom drop out of his world.

Sanada spent that evening at Renji's, carefully not talking about the date he'd witnessed. Somehow, though, he rather thought Renji already knew.

Yukimura, a few days later, asked Sanada to play a one-on-one match with him. There was no tennis practise that day, but they had the keys to the courts and it was hardly unusual for Yukimura to push either of them a little harder than strictly necessary. Yukimura played as he always did; viciously, so that Sanada was sweating and exhausted by the end, and then Yukimura took the final point and told Sanada he wasn't working hard enough. It was comfortingly familiar.

In the showers afterwards, Yukimura hummed softly and contentedly, his hair clinging wetly to his shoulders. Sanada tried not to glance over too often; even without others there to catch him looking, it was probably disrespectful. Besides, by this point, he really didn't need to look. The muscles of Yukimura's back were quite vivid enough in his imagination already. Yukimura shut off the shower, and wrung his hair out over his shoulder, still humming, and Sanada concentrated fiercely on scrubbing his own head, closing his eyes against the soap and then ducking his head under the spigot.

When he opened his eyes again, Yukimura was leaning against the wall next to him, still entirely nude and wet, one hand fiddling with a lock of his hair.

"You think I should cut it?" Yukimura asked, as if it was perfectly normal to ask for hairstyle opinions in these situations.

Sanada shrugged, and shut off the water, grateful for his foresight in setting it to run extremely cold.

Yukimura's eyes went thoughtful, and he crossed his arms across his chest. "It looks a bit girlish, is all."

Sanada shrugged again. "I like it. It suits you."

Yukimura raised an eyebrow.

"You don't look girly with it. It's just… it looks good as it is."

"A compliment? Be still, my beating heart."

"Shut up," said Sanada, snagging his towel so he could wrap it around his waist. "You also looked fine with it short. I thought you liked it long."

"Hmm. I like having people look at me, and it helps."

Sanada blinked. Yukimura was… Yukimura. People would look at him no matter how long his hair was. "I don't think they're looking at your hair, really."

Yukimura laughed, and then he pushed past Sanada to collect his own towel. "Is that so?"

"You don't need to fish for compliments from me."

Yukimura shrugged, wrapping the towel around himself. "Well, maybe I want to."

"Seiichi?"

Yukimura shook his head gently, his back to Sanada. "I broke up with Yukari."

"Oh."

"She wanted — well. I wanted something else, really. Something she can't be." Yukimura shook his head again, more viciously, and little drops of water sprayed from the ends of his hair. Sanada, without thinking about it, stepped forward and put his hand on Yukimura's shoulder.

Yukimura turned and looked into Sanada's eyes for a moment, then his gaze dropped.

"I don't… I know you'd kiss me, if I asked," he said, quietly, in his velvety new voice that made Sanada itch. "But I don't know if I want you the way I think you want me, or if I'm just… flattered by how you look at me sometimes."

Sanada flinched, instinctively, his hand dropping uselessly to his side. Yukimura knew. And wasn't horrified.

Yukimura looked back up, and flushed. "I mean. I've thought about it, and I'd like to try. But would that be enough for you? Would that be fair? If I wasn't sure?"

Sanada stared at Yukimura for a moment, considering, and then dipped his head so he could press his lips to Yukimura's. It was a chaste kiss, lasting perhaps a second at most, and then he pulled away again, searching Yukimura's face for a reaction.

Yukimura looked blank, and then he smiled, wryly. "Oh. That's a yes, then."

"If you have to break my heart to find out, so be it," said Sanada, carefully. "It's a risk I'll take."

"Alright." Yukimura's smile softened a little, and then he glanced down again. "But, since you haven't even taken me on a date, how about we put some clothes on, hmm?"

Sanada smiled, and pressed a kiss against Yukimura's forehead this time, his heart suddenly feeling lighter than it had for days. "Agreed."

"And, Sanada?"

"Mm?"

"Don't worry. The hair stays. Since my boyfriend likes it, and all."


End file.
